Justin Sherrill – DragonFly BSD Digest

2025/12/072025/12/03

Lazy Reading for 2025/12/07

Happy birthday me!

Another Type 30 Display Reproduction At 36% Scale.
Corners of the Internet Database. Set some time aside for this. (via)
Obsidian merchandise is surprisingly nice. (via)
Reflections from TPAC 2025.
AI contributes code on GitHub. Time, not code generation, is the scarcest resource for open source. AI patching does not help.
Framing and World of Warcraft’s Rest System. (via)
XSscreensaver 6.13 is out, a minor update.
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition.
Inside the Great Firewall Part 3: Geopolitical and Societal Ramifications. (via)
The best tape dispenser I’ve ever seen.

2025/12/032025/12/03

NYCBUG: Holiday Party & Lightning Talks & Tips tonight

NYCBUG’s holiday party / lightning talks event is tonight. If you can’t make it, it’ll be streamed on the website and available on IRC.

Note that the recorded stream from the last event, The Once and Future COBOL, is available on YouTube and PeerTube. I heard the speaker, James K. Lowden, talk about FreeTDS years ago and enjoyed it too.

2025/11/302025/11/28

Lazy Reading for 2025/11/30

Some good long reads.

Claude is listening. Linked to note there’s no standard in how long a company keeps your data.
Strandbeest evolution 2025. I am glad this has kept happening.
Using FreeBSD to make self-hosting fun again. (lost the source, sorry)
Containers and giving up on expecting good software installation practices.
The Space Sim’s Last Hurrah.
Running a PDP-8 from 1965. (video, via)
Colossus: The Missing Manual. (via)
ACM has gone open access. This is a significant leap from a major publisher.
Related: the most comprehensive technical journal bibliography I’ve ever seen. (both via)
Apple 2 Black Friday sales. (via)

2025/11/232025/11/14

Lazy Reading for 2025/11/23

No theme though a bit dark.

The only existing copy of UNIX v4. (via)
readtape, for Magnetic tape data recovery in software. Related.
The Internet of Things That Don’t Work. Surely I’ve linked to this before?
The Baby and the Black Box, about ‘Steve’ Shirley, who died earlier this year. (via)
User Specific Runit Supervisor. Not BSD-specific but interesting detail. (via)
Always check that your bug report wasn’t solved a hundred-plus years ago.
What was the Dark Age of Comic Books?
Moving From Windows To FreeBSD As The Linux Chaos Alternative.
Reviving Classic Unix Games: A 20-Year Journey Through Software Archaeology. (via)
how to use the internet again: a curriculum. (via)

2025/11/18

Some USB updates

libusb in DragonFly has had a few updates, mostly for compatibility with nut. Nut, incidentally, replaces the APC tools for backup power management I’ve always used.

Oddly, searching for a nut manpage led me to a utility I haven’t seen before – nut(1), for nutritional analysis.

2025/11/162025/11/06

Lazy Reading for 2025/11/16

No theme, just fun.

Dithering, part 1. (via)
A1 DEADLINE SPECIAL. Resurrecting a high-water point in comics history with new stories. (via)
Ken Thompson interviewed in 2024. Talking about inventing UNIX.
Consider a year-end donation to NetBSD. (via)
Appendix N Jam. The winners. (via)
Advanced Readings in D&D, a series. Accidentally found while searching my own archives.
OS6, an operating system I hadn’t heard of before. (via)
Mr. TIFF. (via)
Brenda.
A Pentium in your hand. These are almost becoming common.

2025/11/13

Make sure your Hammer cleanup cleans up

I meant to link this months ago: if you run DragonFly intermittently in a virtual machine, and it’s not left on overnight, it’ll never get around to automatic cleanup of the Hammer volumes. You could then run out of space. The fix is manually running the cleanup process.

2025/11/092025/11/03

Lazy Reading for 2025/11/09

Mini games theme this week.

Abstract Board Games. Check the source discussion for similar game links.
Related: abstractgames.org. Read the online magazine articles.
Building a UI Framework.
I Am Out Of Data Hell.
Directory of Open Access Books. Not old books out of copyright, but modern books not behind a paywall. (via)
Filtered for wobbly tables and other facts. #4 is funnier out loud.
Thinkycon 2025. (via)
Forbidden Psalm: tabletop miniature MÖRK BORG-compatible. I would not have understood those words a few years ago. (via)
The Morl Society presentation signups. “No topic too niche”. Put together by this fellow. (via)

Your unrelated music of the week: the ‘lost album’ Stereotype from Squarepusher.

2025/11/032025/11/06

Wednesday NYC*BUG: The Once and Future COBOL, James Lowden

That’s two days from now, on 11/5: James Lowden will be talking about COBOL and the gcobol in GCC, which is in part his fault. This should be good. RSVP and go, if you are near. Stream if you are not.

Update: here’s the video:

Peertube: https://toobnix.org/w/gHacaw1TMx7HqrUiZbHYjQ

Youtube: https://youtube.com/live/ldLIyticlNU

2025/11/022025/10/24

Lazy Reading for 2025/11/02

Hey, I made my averaging-once-yearly commit!

The Questing Beast Appendix N. I like the idea of “personal” Appendix Ns.
Phrack is still publishing. (via)
PagedOut, tech articles with a one-page max. (also via)
Winners of the 2025 IFComp. (via)
One of Pascal’s original calculating machines from 1642 is up for sale. (via)
AT&T Archives: The UNIX Operating System. Seeing the inside of Brian Kernighan’s office is sorta neat. (video, via)
Drawing an ASCII TIE fighter for post?quantum cryptography.
Robot Phone Home…Or Else.
Cursed Knowledge. (via)

2025/10/282025/10/24

vi improvements

nvi2, which is what you get in DragonFly when you type “vi”, has been updated to version 2.2.2. The nvi2 README gives a little history of how many years this has been around. Close to 50? A family tree would be interesting.

Related: turning on vim mode in Obsidian gets you this entertaining dialog:

Vi mode confirmation dialog, where you are asked to show you know how to quit out of it before you start it.

Shouldn’t it be “vi mode”? Oh hey, look, an esoteric definition argument, just what you came to the Internet for.

2025/10/262025/10/21

Lazy Reading for 2025/10/26

It’s short link title week!

Networking for System Administrators (2nd Edition) is definitely happening.
Why JPEGs Still Rule the Web. (via)
Replacing Music Streaming Services with a Self-hosted Stack. (via)
ELIZA turns 60. Check the bibliographic links at the end. (via)
BSD-USER 4 LINUX or the BSDULATOR. (via)
Selling Lemons.
Abagious Tactics, a sort of sequel to Oblique Strategies. (via)
PIRACYKILLS, a clever method to turn pirates into customers. (via)
A dumb use of AI.
A clever use of AI.
MUNG origin.
Other tech trees.
Special admin tools. (via)
Simple X11 configuration. Saved for my own benefit. (also via)

Current event: Roguelike Celebration 2025 is happening right now if you read this soon enough. If you missed it, there’s a related Steam sale filled with roguelike games.